Make Finder open faster on macOS by moving Recents to the Dock

When you open a new Finder window in macOS on the Apple Mac, does it instantly appear or does it take a couple of seconds for the contents to refresh? Speed up Finder with simple tweaks.

It can be irritating when Finder is slow to open new windows and you are in a hurry, and the problem could be the Recents feature (called All My Files prior to macOS Mojave). It is possible to speed up Finder by customising Finder and moving Recents.

Click the Finder icon in the Dock or open a new Finder window by pressing Command+N. It displays Recents by default and this feature lists every file recently created or modified in chronological order. The most recent file is at the top. That is nice in theory, but if you have a lot of files and a slow Mac, it could take a couple of seconds for the contents of the Finder window to display.

If you have a top of the range Mac with a super fast SSD, you might not see any delay when showing Finder windows. Consider yourself lucky. Older Macs with less computing power and slower components certainly do appear a bit sluggish when opening Finder.

Set Finder default startup location

One way to avoid this annoying delay is to change the default view when opening new Finder windows and avoid showing Recents. Go to Finder, Preferences and on the General tab use the menu under New Finder windows show and select an alternative, such as your home folder or your Documents or Home folder.

Which folder do you most access when opening new Finder windows? Make it quicker and easier to access by setting it as the default. If it is not one of the items on the list, click Other and select it.

Add Recents to the Dock

Now that Finder is starting up with your favorite folder, Ctrl+click Recents in the sidebar in a Finder window and select Add to Dock on the menu that is displayed.

It is possible to remove Recents from Finder’s sidebar, but there is no need and since it it no longer shown on startup, it doesn't affect the speed. Leave it there.

Customise the Dock view

Finder starts up faster, but it will take another click to get to your recent files. However, we know have a Dock icon. Ctrl+click it to show the menu and select the view that works best for you.

My own oreference is to set Sort by to Date Modified. Set View content as to either Grid or Automatic, which shows as Grid. Fan does not show enough recent files and only shows the most recent half dozen, and List shows the oldest files, not the newest. Grid or Automatic is best.

Fast access to Recents

Now you can click the Recents icon in the dock to see the files you have accessed recently as icons in a grid. Push up or down with two fingers on the trackpad to scroll through the list of recent files and click one to open it. (Mine are mostly screenshots.)

The solution to speeding up Finder is to reduce the work it has to do when a new window is opened. Get rid of Recents. It's nice, but slow, and add it to the Dock instead. One click is all it takes to view your recent files.